2019

. . . and the reality behind that illusion is, well, the initial illusion. Richard Dawkins famously declared that the appearance of design in living things is overwhelming. Theistic evolutionists do not disagree.  But, like arch-atheist Dawkins, they assert that the appearance of design is an illusion and Darwinian evolution is the reality behind the illusion. But TEs don’t agree with Dawkins about everything; they are, after all, “theistic.”  And to give themselves a fig leaf for the whole “theistic” part, they assert that at a deeper, empirically undetectable ontological level, God directs the process toward an end. In summary, the TE position is that the reality behind the illusion is itself an illusion, and the ultimate reality behind that Read More ›

As long-time readers know, we at UD often disparage Wikipedia for its left-wing bias. Still, you have to give it its due. For a quick lookup of non-controversial facts, it has its uses. Uses to which, apparently, Bill Nye has not put it. If he had looked up Wiki’s entry on Ptolemy’s Almagest (published in around 150 AD), he would have known that the ancients understood very well that the universe is incomprehensibly vast. Here is the Summary of Ptolemy’s Cosmos from that article: The cosmology of the Syntaxis includes five main points, each of which is the subject of a chapter in Book I. What follows is a close paraphrase of Ptolemy’s own words from Toomer’s translation. The celestial realm is Read More ›

Yesterday, I noticed how across 24 hours, a smear operation targetting students who participated in the 46th MfL played out. I commented in the MfL thread and think it is worth headlining with added media features: Let me embed some clips from Social Media, by fairly prominent personalities, these are HT Gateway Pundit, and give an idea of the sort of way piling on happens: Let me insert (Sat Jan 26) — again without specific or wider endorsement — Ben Shapiro pointing out on the narrative and its implications: Jan 26, 2019, Bishop’s letter of apology: Student’s lawyer statement: By Attorneys L. Lin Wood And Todd McMurtry ATLANTA, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — On January 18, in the span of a few hours, Nick Read More ›

Jonathan McLatchie In this webinar, biologist Dr. Matti Leisola talks about his journey as a scientist from Darwin to design. See also: Jonathan McLatchie And Gunter Bechly On Conflicting Evidence Re Common Ancestry Matti Leisola: Another gifted scientist poised over the memory hole? and Matti Leisola On Evolution And The Recent Nobel Chemistry Prize Follow UD News at Twitter! Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

It’s now thought that honey bees “shimmer” in order to protect themselves from hornets: What this essentially does it make is extremely difficult for hornets to swoop in and land on their massive huddle to prey on individual bees. Kastberger and his colleagues noted in their research that shimmering can create what they described as a “shelter zone” of over a foot and a half of space between the bees and hornets or wasps. Catie Keck, “Honey Bees’ Oddly Hypnotizing ‘Shimmering’ Is Actually a Clever Defense” at Gizmodo Shimmering beats defending themselves by stinging because the bee that stings dies. Odd that bees could teach themselves this alternative purely by accident… See also: J. Scott Turner and the giant crawling Read More ›

Yesterday, here’s a vid report — I add a timelapse that blows up the typical minimisation (HT BA77): UD’s man on the spot has pictures, so let undeniable truth speak to us. He comments: Often, the only way to get to the top of a hill is a twisty trail that goes here and there, sometimes sideways, sometimes seemingly the wrong way. The reason for this is that there are obstacles in front of you that cannot be overcome directly. That huge rock is not moving anytime soon, and you can’t go through it. Such is the daily experience of the Pro-Lifer. Our opponents, who regard the killing of a child in the womb as a kind of sacrament, have Read More ›

The hermit crabs learned to move into the shells of dead crustaceans, and their well-being depends on that movable property. Recent research suggests that they have made some unusual efforts, as species, to hang onto the desirable shells: Over the course of evolution, penis size has been subject to female choice and competition with male rivals. In a study published today (January 16) in Royal Society Open Science, Mark Laidre, a biologist at Dartmouth College, introduces a new idea: that larger penises help animals keep hold of precious resources. He compared hundreds of specimens of nine related species of hermit crab and showed that crustaceans that have more valuable shells have longer sexual tubes, helping them keep a grip on Read More ›

He argues that we may need new institutions, such as insurance against job obsolescence: I believe that humans are creative enough to come with the new institutions necessary to adapt to a changing world. What I fear is that we will not be allowed to do so. We do not live in an ideal free market, where we can choose whether or not to belong to any particular institution. Instead, we live in a mixed society where we are free to choose whether to belong to some institutions but other institutions are either mandated or forbidden. We are not always free to experiment with new institutions to identify the best ways to organize society. If humans are free to experiment Read More ›

Some researchers wondered whether all that junk DNA supposedly left over from Darwinian evolution actually did something after all so they tested the idea: Patches of seemingly meaningless DNA dotted throughout the genome might actually have a function: helping cells to survive starvation. Two studies published in Nature on 16 January suggest that these stretches of non-coding DNA called introns help to control the rate at which cells grow, conserving energy when food becomes scarce. Michael Marshall, “Cryptic DNA sequences may help cells survive starvation” at Nature Not just “junk DNA” any moreat The Scientist either, it would seem: Two studies contest the idea that the noncoding sequences are just “junk DNA,” demonstrating that they play important roles in the regulation of Read More ›